Last week an estimated 1,000 people took over the Statehouse in Columbus, Ohio to protest the destructive practice of hydraulic fracturing, or "fracking." Joined by others from neighboring states facing similar issues, this "People's Assembly" rallied and marched to the Capitol building -- without a permit -- to decide how they, the people,could end the practice in their state.

Last month, a broad alliance of organizations from across the progressive spectrum came together to train 100,000 people in non-violent direct action in the hopes of supporting a wave of action targeting corporations and the politicians that own them. It was called 99% Spring. Some also called it "co-optation." We call it "alliance building."

The conversation within the movement has been fascinating, and reveals some key pitfalls that the resurgent U.S. Left might fall into if we're not careful.

In case you haven't heard the thunderous celebration by the North American climate movement, on Wednesday the U.S. State Department outright rejected the Keystone XL pipeline. #booyah

On Tuesday, July 26, Tim DeChristopher was sentenced to two years in prison and taken away from the courthouse without goodbyes or the option to self-report. In court, Tim said “You can put me in prison but it will not deter my future of civil disobedience and it won’t deter others who are willing to fight to defend a livable future.”

Outside the Courthouse, hundreds of supporters had gathered from the Salt Lake City community, singing, chanting, and speaking out as they bore witness to the sentencing.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the activist filter bubble, the reverberating echo-chamber of insular social media and political networks that keeps progressives marginal and talking to ourselves. Recently, I've had several different Tea Party twitter accounts follow me (at least four this week alone) and began talking to friends about whether or not this means they are:

1) building lists of progressive activists for potential future smear-campaigns;

2) following their opposition so they can Retweet things out of context to scare/outrage their base; or

Church Sunday morning must have been quite awkward for some people. The sermon might have gone something like "I know we're all disappointed that the rapture didn't come, but don't worry, its not like it's the end of the world or anything." Ha ha.

The tone inside the conference center at the UN Climate Negotiations in Cancun has been a bit dismal this past week. Yet despite the reduced expectations inside, this morning the international peasant movement La Via Campesina gave us a new injection of hope and vision with a vibrant march of thousands of small farmers, Indigenous peoples and community activists through the streets in Mexico. It kicked off today's international day of action -- "1,000 Cancuns" -- where grassroots organizations across the world demonstrated local resiliency and real solutions to the climate crisis.

The letter below was written by a number of grassroots organizations engaged in climate justice organizing across the United States.

To the Board and Staff of 1 Sky,

We are grassroots and allied organizations representing racial justice, indigenous rights, economic justice, immigrant rights, youth organizing and environmental justice communities actively engaged in climate justice organizing.

Chevron CEO John Watson was invited to speak about "The Energy Economy" at the University of Chicago business school, Chicago Booth this morning. The event provided audience members a chance to ask Watson questions, and as it just so happens, we have a few we've been meaning to ask him.

Some friends and I were concerned about Chevron’s attempts to evade both the law and the company’s moral responsibility to clean up the 18 billion gallons of toxic oil waste it deliberately dumped in the Amazon, killing 1,400 people and poisoning thousands of others. So we paid him a visit.